Guys i just found about the ecosia search engine. http://www.ecosia.org They r a german startup which donates 80% of ad revenue to forest conservation. They have won several European awards and already hv millions of users. They use bing+their own search algorithms. I think all linux distros should use it as default search engine in their pre installed browsers. I think this reflects the ethos of FOSS

Well, I prefer privacy, and that is something, what ecosia does not give. Several data get provided to their partners, other information go to Google. So I could use Google also directly. Even worse than using Google: The data go both to Bing and Google. And although it might look at the first view different, ecosia is a profit organization. That is nothing bad by itself, but they force a different appearance, which is nothing more than a business model.

If you live in Europe (Italy?) also etools.ch might be useful - so you can search specifically in individual countries and filter by language. The terms and conditions seem quite reasonable according to Swiss law. But I am neither a lawyer nor a security expert in network technology but only an average user.

to Startpage: well meant, only it just does not find anything, because I switch to google regularly

DuckDuckGo is getting better and better - at least that's my opinion

You can accuse Google a lot, but technically they are still unbeatable

If you live in Europe (Italy?) also etools.ch might be useful - so you can search specifically in individual countries and filter by language. The terms and conditions seem quite reasonable according to Swiss law. But I am neither a lawyer nor a security expert in network technology but only an average user.

Thanks for that one! I was totally unaware of its existence. I will check it out. Another European search engine that I know of but I haven't used is Qwant. Do you know something about it?
This is an excerpt from their privacy policy:

Qwant ensures that your privacy is protected, and this is the cornerstone of our philosophy. We don’t use any cookie nor any tracking device that may allow us to track your browsing habits or to establish your profile. You are of course entitled to the rights provided by law (in particular the European legal framework and the French loi « Informatique et Libertés » du 7 janvier 1978), but we also forbid ourselves from collecting an important amount of data that others collect, which are useless to provide you with the services you need. We never try to find out who you are or what you are personally doing when you use our search engine. When we do need to collect data, we do not disclose nor sell it for commercial or other uses. We use it exclusively to provide you with the services offered by Qwant.https://about.qwant.com/legal/privacy/

Last edited by Marziano on Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:11 am, edited 2 times in total.

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others." -Marx...
Groucho { Marx

For all Europeans here in the forum: Google filters meanwhile rather bluntly to protect us citizens from bad, evil information.
To work around this I use the evil Chinese bought Opera with built-in VPN - switch once and the stupid Google message does not appear.

Certainly , Google are world leaders in mining data ( including ours of course ) and that makes them useful to me ,
but I want that data traffic to be a strictly one-way street , and DuckDuckGo and others bring that a step closer .

I only heard of ECOSIA recently , simply because it was the default search engine in a distro that I've been road-testing ...
... Mageia ? Trisquel ? .... I can't remember .

I read-up on them , then I ditched it .
If they are in bed with Bing , Google or whoever , they have to go .

I am very pro-environment , but I also see that in certain cases it has become a " flag of convenience " to be waved ,
a fashionable badge to wear to attract attention to other activities ( usually commercial )
It certainly did no harm at all to Bongo or The Hedge

I don't intend any slur against ECOSIA , but it's definitely not for me .

Qwant was the default search engine in the SRIron Browser , IIRC.
All sorts of claims made by both of them , but not enough transparency for me
.... another case of " Big hat , no cattle "

" And so it goes " - Kurt Vonnegut The modern reality and the satirical parody are rapidly converging .